Using a Notary Seal on Documents

On a document notarized abroad, you will often see a red or gold notary sticker affixed to the certified document, but many people do not fully understand the difference between the two. In addition, some lawyers and notaries public in Canada use only their embossed seal on your documents, without applying a coloured sticker, in order to save on costs. To justify this, they often explain that Ontario's Notaries Act does not require the use of a coloured seal sticker. In their view, using a coloured sticker is unnecessary, serving only to make the document look more "polished."

In practice, it is true that Ontario's Notaries Act does not require a coloured sticker to be used on a notarized document. However, in some other countries, local law requires that a notary's seal be affixed over a gold or red sticker. As a result, applying a coloured sticker to a notarized document not only makes the document look neater and more professional, but also helps ensure compliance with the domestic laws of certain countries. Many lawyers and notaries public in Canada may charge an additional fee if you need a nice gold or red sticker applied to your document.

At Giang Le Notary Office, our Notary Public chooses to affix a gold sticker to every client document, for two reasons:

Gold stickers are widely recognized and used by courts, government agencies, law offices, and educational institutions across Canada and around the world. The value of a gold sticker lies in the fact that it is easily accepted as an implicit "default standard" between organizations.
Gold stickers have a clear advantage over red stickers in that they show up much more clearly when a notarized document is photocopied, scanned, or faxed, preserving crisp, distinct lines that clearly reflect the embossed seal — whereas a red sticker tends to appear as a solid dark circle when printed, photocopied, scanned, or faxed. As for documents that do not use a coloured sticker at all, the embossed seal is often very difficult to detect, or cannot be seen clearly, when the notarized document is photocopied, scanned, or faxed.

For this reason, Giang Le Notary Office uses a gold sticker on notarized documents in order to give clients the best possible document quality when it needs to be photocopied, printed, scanned, or faxed. You will not be charged any extra fee to have a gold sticker added to your document requiring notarization.

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